David Ford (born 24 February 1951) is a

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

, who was leader of the

Alliance Party of Northern Ireland The Alliance Party of Northern Ireland (APNI), or simply Alliance, is a liberal and centrist political party in Northern Ireland. As of the 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election, it is the third-largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly, ...

from October 2001 until October 2016 and was

Minister of Justice A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a v ...

from April 2010 until May 2016. He was a

Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs; ga, Comhaltaí den Tionól Reachtach; sco-ulster, Laa-Makkan Forgaitherars) are representatives elected by the voters to the Northern Ireland Assembly. About The Northern Ireland Assembly has 90 ...

(MLA) for South Antrim from 1998 to 2018.

Early life

Ford was born on 24 February 1951 to

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

and Welsh parents and grew up in

Orpington Orpington is a town and area in south east London, England, within the London Borough of Bromley. It is 13.4 miles (21.6 km) south east of Charing Cross. On the south-eastern edge of the Greater London Built-up Area, it is south of St Ma ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, England. Ford was educated at Warren Road Primary School, Orpington and

Dulwich College Dulwich College is a 2–19 independent, day and boarding school for boys in Dulwich, London, England. As a public school, it began as the College of God's Gift, founded in 1619 by Elizabethan actor Edward Alleyn, with the original purpose of ...

, London. He spent summer holidays on his uncle's farm in

Gortin Gortin () is a village and townland in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It is ten miles (16 km) north of Omagh in the valley of the Owenkillew river, overlooked by the Sperrins. It had a population of 360 at the 2001 Census. History ...

County Tyrone County Tyrone (; ) is one of the six Counties of Northern Ireland, counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the thirty-two traditional Counties of Ireland, counties of Ireland. It is no longer used as an admini ...

, and moved to Northern Ireland permanently in 1969 when he went to study

Economics Economics () is the social science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and intera ...

Queen's University Belfast , mottoeng = For so much, what shall we give back? , top_free_label = , top_free = , top_free_label1 = , top_free1 = , top_free_label2 = , top_free2 = , established = , closed = , type = Public research university , parent = ...

(QUB). There he joined the university's student Alliance Party grouping. After graduating, Ford took a year out to work as a volunteer at the ecumenical

Corrymeela Community The Corrymeela Community was founded in 1965 by Ray Davey, along with John Morrow and Alex Watson, as an organisation seeking to aid individuals and communities which suffered through the violence and polarisation of the Northern Irish confl ...

Ballycastle, County Antrim Ballycastle () is a small seaside town in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It is on the northeasternmost coastal tip of Ireland, in the Antrim Coast and Glens Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The harbour hosts the ferry to Rathlin Island, whi ...

, before starting work as a social worker in 1973.

Political career

Ford stood unsuccessfully for Antrim Borough Council in 1989, and entered politics full-time when he became general secretary of the Alliance Party. In that role, he was best known as a strong supporter of the then-leader

John Alderdice John Thomas Alderdice, Baron Alderdice (born 28 March 1955) is a Northern Ireland politician. He was the Speaker and a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for East Belfast from 1998 to 2004 and 1998 to 2003, respectively. Alderdi ...

and an advocate of better political organisation and

community politics Community politics is a movement in British politics to re-engage people with political action on a local level. Most developed amongst the Liberal Democrats but adopted to some extent by the British Greens, other parties, and Independents. An ...

. He was elected to Antrim Borough Council in 1993, 1997 and – after leaving the Council in 2001 to concentrate on Assembly business – again in 2005. In 1996, Ford stood unsuccessfully for election to the

Northern Ireland Forum The Northern Ireland Forum for Political Dialogue was a body set up in 1996 as part of a process of negotiations that eventually led to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. The forum was elected, with five members being elected for each Westmin ...

in South Antrim. In 1997, he obtained 12% of the vote in the general election in South Antrim, and in 1998 was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly in the constituency of the same name. He fought South Antrim again in the 2000 by-election and in the

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

and 2005 general elections.

Alliance Party leadership

In 2001,

Seán Neeson Seán Neeson (born 9 February 1946) is a politician in Northern Ireland who served as leader of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland between 1998 and 2001, and a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for East Antrim from 1998 to 20 ...

resigned from the Party leadership following poor election results. David Ford won the leadership election on 6 October by 86 votes to 45, ahead of

Eileen Bell Eileen Bell CBE (born 15 August 1943) is an Alliance Party politician from Dromara, Northern Ireland. She was a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for North Down from 1998 to 2007, and is a former deputy leader of the Alliance ...

. Ford outlined his internationalist view point in his speech at the leadership selection when he said:

I am keen to co-operate with other non-sectarian groups in Northern Ireland, including political parties that will stand against the tribal divide. Our links to the South are not as good as they should be, either with the PDs or with Fine Gael, where we have many natural allies. We must also recognise that Northern Ireland is not unique in the world. Our stand is not different in substance from those who work for peace and reconciliation in Cyprus, Palestine or Bosnia. We should learn from friends abroad. To suggest that 'our wee province' is unique is to do a disservice. There is little more objectionable than the sight of the political begging bowl being dragged out by sectional politicians.

Ford gave Alliance a stability which it had lacked since the departure of John Alderdice, but the Party had declined seriously in the late 1990s and all Ford could do was stabilise the situation. Within a month of taking over the leadership, however, Ford had a chance to establish Alliance's relevancy in the post-

Good Friday Agreement The Good Friday Agreement (GFA), or Belfast Agreement ( ga, Comhaontú Aoine an Chéasta or ; Ulster-Scots: or ), is a pair of agreements signed on 10 April 1998 that ended most of the violence of The Troubles, a political conflict in No ...

environment – on 6 November 2001, the

Northern Ireland Executive The Northern Ireland Executive is the devolved government of Northern Ireland, an administrative branch of the legislature – the Northern Ireland Assembly. It is answerable to the assembly and was initially established according to the ter ...

was to be re-established. Due to defections within his own

Ulster Unionist Party The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is a unionist political party in Northern Ireland. The party was founded in 1905, emerging from the Irish Unionist Alliance in Ulster. Under Edward Carson, it led unionist opposition to the Irish Home Rule movem ...

First Minister A first minister is any of a variety of leaders of government cabinets. The term literally has the same meaning as "prime minister" but is typically chosen to distinguish the office-holder from a superior prime minister. Currently the title of ' ...

David Trimble William David Trimble, Baron Trimble, (15 October 1944 – 25 July 2022) was a British politician who was the first First Minister of Northern Ireland from 1998 to 2002, and leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) from 1995 to 2005. He wa ...

, had insufficient support within the Unionist bloc in the Assembly to be re-elected to his post. Ford and two of his five colleagues re-designated as Unionist, for just 22 minutes, in order to secure Trimble's position, and thereby enabled the devolved institutions to operate for another year. However, Alliance failed to make any political gains from their move, and the UUP and

Sinn Féin Sinn Féin ( , ; en, " eOurselves") is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active throughout both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Gri ...

failed to reach agreement on the

decommissioning Decommissioning is a general term for a formal process to remove something from an active status, and may refer to: Infrastructure * Decommissioned offshore * Decommissioned highway * Greenfield status of former industrial sites * Nuclear decommi ...

issue, ensuring that the institutions collapsed again in October 2002. In the Northern Ireland Assembly Elections of 2003, Ford's seat in the Assembly was perceived to be under severe threat from Sinn Féin's Martin Meehan, with many commentators expecting him to lose it. However, Ford's expertise in nuts and bolts electioneering stood him in good stead. Although Alliance's vote almost halved, Ford's own vote in South Antrim increased from 8.6% to 9.1%. Meehan's vote increased dramatically, from 7.3% to 11.5%, and he started the election count ahead. Ford had much greater transfer appeal and finished 180 votes ahead of Meehan at the end of a dramatic three-way fight for the last two seats, with the SDLP's Thomas Burns just 14 votes ahead of Ford. Despite the dramatic fall in vote, Alliance held on to its six seats in the Assembly, which remained suspended. In 2004, Ford made good his leadership election pledge to work with other parties, as Alliance joined with the Workers' Party, Northern Ireland

Conservatives Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

and elements of the

Northern Ireland Women's Coalition The Northern Ireland Women's Coalition (NIWC) was a minor cross-community political party in Northern Ireland from 1996 to 2006. The NIWC was founded by Catholic academic Monica McWilliams and Protestant social worker Pearl Sagar to contest ele ...

to support Independent candidate

John Gilliland John Sanford Gilliland Jr. (October 18, 1935 – July 27, 1998) was an American radio broadcaster and documentarian best known for the ''Pop Chronicles'' music documentaries and as one of the original members of The Credibility Gap. He was ...

in the

European elections Elections to the European Parliament take place every five years by universal adult suffrage; with more than 400 million people eligible to vote, they are considered the second largest democratic elections in the world after India's. Until ...

, achieving the best result for the centre ground for 25 years. Ford's greatest triumph came in the 2007 Northern Ireland Assembly election, when the party achieved its highest vote share since Alderdice's departure and picked up a seat in what was an otherwise poor election for the moderates. Despite media predictions once again of his demise, Ford himself was elected third in South Antrim, with over 13% of the poll. In the 2011 Assembly elections, the Alliance Party managed to increase their vote by 50% gaining an extra seat in East Belfast and surpassing the Ulster Unionist Party in Belfast.

Northern Ireland Justice Minister

On 12 April 2010, Ford was chosen by the Assembly to become Northern Ireland's first Justice Minister in 38 years. Ford was supported in the Assembly by the DUP, Sinn Féin, the Alliance Party, the Green Party and the Progressive Unionist Party. Separate candidates for the position were put forward by both the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP, being Danny Kennedy and Alban McGuinness respectively. Referencing the election, Ford said, "I am fully conscious that I am not the unanimous choice of this assembly but I do say to every member of this house, that we have a duty together to provide leadership and if we didn't know that before, we sadly had a reminder of it at half past twelve this morning."

Personal life

David Ford and his wife Anne have four grown-up children and live in rural County Antrim. Until the spring of 2013, he was an elder in the Second

Donegore Donegore (historically ''Dunogcurra'', ) is the name of a hill, a townland, a small cluster of residences, and a civil parish in the historic barony of Antrim Upper, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. Donegore lies approximately 5 miles (8 km) ...

congregation of the

Presbyterian Church in Ireland The Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI; ga, Eaglais Phreispitéireach in Éirinn; Ulster-Scots: ''Prisbytairin Kirk in Airlann'') is the largest Presbyterian denomination in the Republic of Ireland, and the largest Protestant denomination in ...

. He was removed from his role as a ruling elder over differences with fellow congregants on the subject of gay marriage.

References

External links

Official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ford, David 1951 births Living people English Presbyterians Leaders of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland Alumni of Queen's University Belfast Alliance Party of Northern Ireland MLAs Northern Ireland MLAs 1998–2003 Northern Ireland MLAs 2003–2007 Northern Ireland MLAs 2007–2011 Northern Ireland MLAs 2011–2016 Northern Ireland MLAs 2016–2017 Northern Ireland MLAs 2017–2022 People educated at Dulwich College English people of Welsh descent People from Orpington Presbyterians from Northern Ireland Ministers of the Northern Ireland Executive (since 1999) Members of Antrim Borough Council Alliance Party of Northern Ireland councillors Alliance Party parliamentary candidates